Students in this studio were asked to design a Water Resource Experiment Station at a site on the bank of the Missouri River west of Linton and South of Bismarck, North Dakota. The students were given presentations by studio collaborators from the Biology Department and the Department of Civil Engineering concerning the use of constructed wetlands to clean waste water from the laboratory and rain water harvesting from the building’s exterior to add fresh water to the clean waste water for the use of the laboratory. Each design is approximately 20,000 square feet in area, has public parking and public toilets accessible from the exterior and is intended to be open to the public for their use after hours and on the weekends.
This building design focuses primarily on strategies which can diffuse, block, or harness sun light for both passive and active systems by adapting the form and envelope of the building to meet the specific demands of its function.
Soil retention, water runoff, constructability, solar gain, views, and constructed wetland placement are all driving forces which led to the particular site selection. Once constructed, a building should have as little negative impacts on the environment as possible. In response, all water runoff from the building’s gutter system is deposited directly into the adjacent 3rd pond of the constructed wetland. There is no need for excessive pumps and plumbing to get the water to its destination. This is only achieved by careful consideration of building footprint, roof slopes, and pond placement.
Offices, conference rooms, and laboratories are spaces where maximum accuracy and productivity is required, thus are most susceptible to glare or visual discomfort. Since the site is in the Northern Hemisphere, this issue is solved programmatically by orienting some of these spaces to the North for evenly diffused daylight. Where only heat gain is desired, a massive trombe wall, which also serves as a thermal mass to distribute heat at night, is used to heat spaces while blocking sunlight entirely. For spaces which offer choice of the amount of natural day lighting and heat gain, exterior shading louvers are used to control visual comfort and the performance of the building.
The form of the building is derived by solar angles at certain times of the year. The structure, which holds this form in place, informs the spaces inside and contains the ducts and plumbing in a linear line with few turns so fluid and air can move more efficiently. The form, structure, and mechanical ducts/pipes were designed simultaneously, which is a typical mark of high performance buildings.
ENVELOPE: 5mm AMC (Aluminum Metal Composite) Dry Joint Panel System, Total 350mm Rigid Insulation, Triple Pane Insulated Glazing
STRUCTURE: Steel Wide Flange Superstructure, Wide Flange Secondary, Composite Floor Decking, Corrugated Aluminum
PASSIVE SYSTEMS: Massive Stone Trombe Wall / Thermal Mass, 250mm Aluminum Louvers
ACTIVE SYSTEMS: Integrated Solar Heat Collectors, Glycol System w/ Direct Exchange to Air Supply, North End Air-Intake, Rooftop Exhaust